Fact Checker: Nuke plants safe from quakes ... until they aren't

Mar. 19, 2011

THE CLAIM

Nuclear power plants in California and elsewhere in the U.S. are safe from the kind of earthquake damage and breakdowns that have occurred in Japan.

THE BACKGROUND

The series of explosions, fires and fears of meltdowns at the Fukushima nuclear complex in Japan, following the 9.0 magnitude earthquake that hit the country March 11, has Americans asking whether such events can happen at U.S. nuclear plants.

The Japanese reactors were designed to withstand earthquakes, but the temblor was a record for Japan, and a devastating tsunami knocked out backup power, disrupting cooling systems and deepening the problems.

U.S. officials and the nuclear industry have said that kind of disaster can't happen at U.S. nuclear plants, even in earthquake-prone areas like California.

Two days after the Japan quake, Marvin Fertel, the president of the Nuclear Energy Institute appearing on the TV show "Meet the Press," expressed confidence about the safety of nuclear plants. When asked if Americans should be concerned that U.S. plants are sitting in earthquake zones, Fertel said they are safe.

"Yeah, all of our power plants, whether they're in California, which is a high earthquake area, or in the Midwest or other places, are required by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to design to be able to withstand the maximum credible earthquake," he said. "And the NRC continues to update and upgrade what the requirements are."

He added that "we've done things post-9/11 to make sure that if something happened in our plant, like happened in Japan, where you lost all power, that you could get water to the core and continue to cool it."

Gregory Jaczko, the chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, asked at a press briefing last week whether reactors in the U.S. could withstand a quake similar to the 9.0 event in Japan, was less reassuring.

"At this point, what I can say is we have a strong safety program in place to deal with seismic events that are likely to happen at any nuclear facility in this country," Jaczko said.

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That is the crux of the matter. The plants are designed to withstand the expected and the "credible." It was an unexpected and incredible cascade of events that is causing all the problems in Japan.

The Diablo Canyon nuclear facility in California, for example, is a 26-year-old complex within 60 miles of the San Andreas Fault, and even closer to other faults. It was built to withstand a 7.5 earthquake, according to Pacific Gas and Electric, which owns the plant. The company says the faults in the region are "not expected" to produce any larger quakes.

That's exactly what the Japanese government and nuclear industry said about its plants, right up until nine days ago.

Robert Alvarez, a former senior policy adviser to the U.S. Secretary of Energy and currently a senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C., said the public can't assume that regulators take worst-case scenarios into account.

"The lesson here is that nature has a way of tragically exceeding the best expectations of science," he said. "The way they decide how safe is safe is a matter of probability risk assessment. If no earthquake worse than 7.5 is credible, then they conclude we don't have to worry."

Alvarez said in light of the disaster in Japan, U.S. regulators should not extend the licenses of reactors in earthquake zones based solely on historical data.

Carl Baap, spokesman for the Nuclear Energy Institute, said it's true that the reactors were designed against "credible" threats, based on the worst earthquakes the particular sites have experienced. He noted that autos are designed to survive the kinds of crashes that most drivers are apt to face and not collisions at 200 miles per hour.

"We expect that what's happened in Japan will lead to a further examination (of threat assessment)," Baap said. "If regulatory changes are needed, we will support them."

THE VERDICT

The blanket claim that American nuclear plants are safe from the type of disaster now striking Japan is not supported by evidence. The facilities may be able to withstand "expected" problems, like earthquakes up to a 7.5 magnitude, but no one can say Mother Nature doesn't have anything worse in her tectonic arsenal. The claim is qualified at best; wishful thinking at worst.